No Intergovernmental Conference on Constitution replacement?

The following is from a report in today's Financial Times, linked here:

Ms Merkel, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, spent the weekend in talks with her Portuguese and Slovenian counterparts – next in line for the hot seat – as well as José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, and Hans-Gert Pottering, European parliament president.

Already the strategy is clear. Ms Merkel wants the June summit to agree all but the finest details of a new treaty to replace the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, focusing on modernising EU rules and institutions.

The deal would be done at the first European summit attended by Nicolas Sarkozy, incoming French president, and the last attended by Tony Blair, UK prime minister. Crucially for Ms Merkel, the sceptical Gordon Brown, Mr Blair’s presumed successor, would still be in the wings.

“Sarkozy is the best outcome for Merkel because of speed,” says a Berlin-based diplomat. “He’s committed to agreeing a new treaty quickly and to have it ratified quickly in parliament.”

José Socrates, Portuguese prime minister, told the Financial Times he was “confident” of a positive outcome at the June summit. Although refusing to set out a timetable for the subsequent Intergovernmental Conference under his presidency, he said: “I would prefer it to be done in a rapid way.”

Maybe the new procedures to speed and ease EU administration will simply be agreed within the European Council and implemented without the wider public ever knowing exactlywhat they might be?